Alyson’s latest book of poems, Suddenly Everything, has just been published by Poetry Salzburg. Previous publications include The Stone Library (Peterloo Poets), Towards Intimacy (Queriendo Press) a book of short stories, collaborative artist’s books and drama for Radio 4 and Sky Television. As well as writing poems for the page, Alyson also enjoys working with poetry in three-dimensional spaces. She has a poem carved into Milsom Street pavement in Bath and she has been running The Migration Habits of Stones, an international poetry as public art project, for the past twelve years.

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Alyson was the country’s first poet-in-residence in a Geography Department at Exeter University, a post funded by the Leverhulme Trust. She is currently a Fellow with the Royal Literary Fund in Plymouth and has just returned from a Fellowship at Hawthornden Castle. As well as adjusting to life beyond the castle walls, Alyson is offering poetry surgeries in Truro through the Poetry Society and working with artists and dancers on an exhibition relating to the Merry Maidens stone circle in Cornwall.

3 thoughts on “Featured Poet: Alyson Hallett”

I enjoyed this poem very much – I know it’s not a thing being “made” but it reminds me of my own memories (and how I feel about my memories) of my own childhood and youth – my parents being farmers, and living in a rural community. And I love your final image and the mystery of it – again it brings back images for me – of giant lofts full of hay bales and how as a child I looked at the things around me – and how I put my own particular significances to things and used my imagination to fill in the gaps and to wonder 🙂

I really like the way the direct statements of desire in this poem and the utterly straightforward diction, combine to enact a sense of the workmanlike plainness and reliability of the way of life the narrator has lost, so that the poem is presented like a sturdy, well-crafted pair of shoes.